GTO auto shifting HARD, COMMON?
 

I had the car since April this year, it had 84,000 on it. I've put about 5K on it since. Never give me a hint of trouble. I've been to the track a few times and have about 15 passes on it since I bought it.

After driving all week stop and go, home to work, etc... Yesterday I pulled into Krystals ordered and had to pull around and wait. I pulled into a spot, put it in park and shut the car off. Started it back up after maybe a minute and pulled out of the spot. As soon as I pulled out on the highway and it shifted into second it felt different. It shifted HARD and I was just creeping. I dropped my wife off at her car and pulled out again going thru the gears. LIGHT throttle : 1-2 shift is HARD but firm. 2-3 feels weird like its hard but it kinda jolts the trans because the difference in gearing? idk. No matter how much throttle its th same. Although I didn't go WOT because I was worried about the trans blowing up at this point. I can even feel it hits harder when It downshifts too. I stopped at multiple lights and it did it every time. I even shut it off at a light and restarted it...same thing. At this point im sick to my stomach.

I got home and checked the fluid. Its not low or really burnt but it does look like it needs changing. Far as I know it has 89K on it. I started researching what I could on this. I ran across a few threads regarding this and people are saying to clean the MAF and it should(may) correct this issue. I have a Spectre CAI and descreened the MAF (about a 1,000 miles ago) haven't had a single issue to date but maybe something got on the wires. Its tuned with HPTuners but again that's been about 1,000 miles ago and no issues until yesterday.

I plan to start simple and troubleshoot but I want to ask is this THAT COMMON? These trannys just decide to start banging the gears one day for no apparent reason? Should I be planning to a tranny rebuild or replacement? A friend of mine has a truck that's done it for years when it get hot but it has never give him "trouble".

FYI replacing it with a RPM etc etc and a yank isn't really an option at this time. I could but its my daily and I cant see that happening this week. lol

Cleaned my MAF. So far so good

good to hear , get a screen or a new mad and leave it in .

Did you find a solution to this? Was it the maf? Not to revisit an old thread but my car just started doing this 2 days ago.